@Tom West - I think you're onto something there. It's especially had to get decent vacation in a US company if you change jobs every 3 or 4 years. Even if you've got 10 year's service in one place and have built up, say, 4 weeks of vacation, any new place will try to hammer you back down to 2 weeks with a third week after a year.

It's also significant that the article mentions "long vacation". I don't think taking a week off is enough, especially in this age of constant connection. It's very hard, but very beneficial, to actually shut off work for two weeks straight. But if you only get two weeks for the entire year, who can do that?